The invention pertains to cut stones and, more particularly, to gem stones such as diamonds.
It is known that the brilliant cut maximizes the fire of a diamond. For this reason such a cut is by far the most popular. However, the cut is the most wasteful of diamond raw material.
On the other hand, step cut stones such as square cut diamonds and emerald cut diamonds while being more conservative of diamond raw material have none of the fire of brilliant cut diamonds. These facts have been known to the diamond trade for a long time and attempts have been made to devise hybrid cuts to capture the advantages of the square and brilliant cut diamonds.
One such hybrid is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,065 for a stone with an emerald cut crown and a modified brilliant cut base. While such a stone has more brilliance than the conventional square or emerald cut stones, it does not approach the brilliance of a brilliant cut stone.
Another such hybrid is shown and described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,649. This hybrid has become very popular since it closer approaches the fire, brilliance, and life of a brilliant cut stone with a saving in weight over the stone of U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,065.
However, there are instances when the hybrid of U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,649 is less than satisfactory. In particular, when one is dealing with colored diamonds which have very deep culets one obtains less than optimum brilliance and fire. In addition, for smaller stones while there is considerable weight saving with the cut of the hybrid of my U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,649, there is still a need for more weight saving.